12 May 2016

Buses can now use your location to deliver location targeted ads

Like any bus across the world, London’s Double Deckers are already being used as mobile billboards around the city—but the interiors now deliver ads to smartphones too. As of March of this year, the buses have capitalized on what marketers call ‘dwell time,’ the arbitrary number of minutes travelers do nothing in between destinations, to send ads to passenger’s mobile devices.

Leveraging Bluetooth-powered beacon technology, users are able to receive hyper-targeted ads based on location and preference, which has been met with as much criticism as it has acceptance.

While privacy is an increasing concern among consumers in an age when every service seems to require more data and personal info to rev the engine, the ad-feed only works via a single app (meaning users have total control regarding when and where they receive an ad). The plot is the brainchild of a partnership between advertising giant Exterion Media and app-maker Mapway, who have integrated the capabilities into the latter company’s Bus Times London app.

Proxama, a third company (which helped install the beacons in London’s buses last summer) points to the clickthrough rates that are “as much as seven times higher” as a result of the contextually aware adverts. The company says that the installation is a great way for advertisers to “start arresting the rise of adblocking on mobile” by catering to wants, needs and desires on a granular level so as to reframe what advertising means in the minds of on-the-go consumers. Though this move alone hasn’t been enough to change the hearts of the masses, it establishes an unprecedented direction for marketers to win over once dubious shoppers and commuters with nothing to do.